Man charged with terror offence over Manchester Victoria New Year knife attack

A suspect has been charged with terror offences in relation to a knife attack at a busy UK train station on New Year’s Eve.

Mahdi Mohamud, 25, is charged with attempting to murder three people at Manchester’s Victoria Train Station.

He will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on June 12, 2019, to face three counts of attempted murder and one count of a terror offence.

The latter relates to the possession of a document or record likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, Greater Manchester Police says.

Mohamud, who used to live in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, was charged on Thursday – almost five months on.

The force said: “At around 9pm on Monday December 31, 2018, colleagues from British Transport Police responded to reports of a stabbing at Victoria Train Station.”

Two members of the public – a man and a woman – and a British Transport Police officer were taken to hospital following the incident at the station.

Police declared it a “critical incident”.

According to Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson, officers were at an address in Cheetham Hill shortly after the attack.

Mr Jackson went on to say at the time: “We believe we have identified the man in custody.

“In fact we are currently searching an address in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, we commenced that in the last 30 to 40 minutes.

“We know the attacker arrived at the location and soon after he attacked two people, a man and a woman, who have suffered very serious injuries.

“Whilst serious thankfully these are not life threatening.”

The man was tasered and pepper-sprayed at the scene before being arrested and taken away by police.

Speaking at the time, Sam Clack, who saw the attack, said: “I just heard this most blood curdling scream and looked down the platform.

“What it looked like was a guy in his 60s with a woman of similar age and another guy all dressed in black.

“It looked like they were having a fight but she was screaming in this blood curdling way.

“I saw police in high-viz come towards him.

“He came towards me. I looked down and saw he had a kitchen knife with a black handle with a good, 12-inch blade.

“It was just fear, pure fear.”

And Rebekka, another witness, told Mirror Online: “I heard the most bloodcurdling scream I’ve ever heard and turned to see everyone running towards me.

“Some guy told me to run. ‘Keep running’ was all he kept saying – ‘just keep running’. I jumped off the tram track and started to run down the tram lines and hid behind some concrete slabs under one of the arches.

“I had no idea what had happened at this point, I was just really scared, I didn’t know if I was going to die.”

Source: Mirror